Tuesday, August 14, 2012

“Community Colleges: Helpful Places
Where People Can Realize Their Dreams”

Darrel L. Hammon, Ph.D.

Calling
community colleges “helpful places,” where “people realize their dreams,” past
and present U.S. presidents, Bush and Obama, two very different presidents, believe
community colleges are “major assets of our country.” For most, this revelation
is not new. But, unfortunately, the revelation about how good community
colleges are and have been somehow has not been received by many who are not
educationally in tune or they have not had to use the services community
colleges offer.

But there
is hope. Many leaders maintain community colleges are integral parts of our
educational society, especially when we listen to the needs of the communities
they reside in and the workers who need to upgrade their skills to compete in
today’s ever-changing marketplace.

Community
colleges are all about access,
affordability, and quality.

First
access—Throughout
the United States, students are clamoring to enroll in community colleges. Enrollments
are up in almost every community college in the country. Community colleges do
not have long lines or large classes or professors who don’t know your name. If
you want a course, the chances are great that you will be able to get into it.
Community colleges offer a variety of options for learners: day and night
courses, on-campus and off-campus courses, non-credit or continuing education
courses, customized workforce development programming, and online courses.

Many
community colleges offer courses in outreach sites throughout their service
areas—some in schools, others in shopping malls, and others in churches or
community buildings. Community colleges also encourage high school students who
are ready to enroll in dual and concurrent enrollment courses already
articulated at their high schools or attend courses via video conferencing or
the Internet. Bottom line is this: Community colleges provide great programming
that is accessible to everyone.

Second,
affordability—Community
colleges are notoriously less expensive than universities and four-year colleges.
Community colleges are better educational buys for the State. With the local
county usually providing about 50% of the total cost of the community colleges,
the State is able to educate/train students at half the cost or less, truly a
great investment for taxpayers. Students from the local area usual stay in
their states and in their communities, thus providing additional economic
development for the community. Statistics show that each student contributes
more than $10,000 per year to the economy, in form of housing, tuition, books,
groceries, entertainment, etc. Ask any pizza joint in a college town. They can
tell you when students are in town and when they are not.

What is
even more blatant is it definitely less expensive to send your children to a
community college for the first two years. When parents consider the first two
years at any college, everyone has to take core subjects like English, speech,
literature, computers, science, math, history, social sciences, and others.

So the
question begs: If student can enroll in quality programs at affordable prices and
take the courses for 1/3 of the cost, why not do it?

When you
compare the cost of attending a community college to other postsecondary
institutions in your state, community colleges are, by far, the best
educational great bargain, especially if you are a taxpayer, and that pretty
much includes all of us. With our economy the way it is, attending community
colleges just makes good economic sense.

What about quality? Many times the question about
quality emerges from discussions regarding sending young people to community
college. The answer is quite simple: the quality and rigor do not suffer. In
fact, many community college graduates who transfer to four-year colleges and
universities do as well as or better than their counterparts who began their
education at the university.

Some years
ago, a chauffeur of a shuttle was driving some community college people to a
national convention where President Bush was going to speak. During the drive,
the discussion turned to community colleges and why these people were in town.
The chauffeur told the group that he was a graduate student at the University
of Minnesota, an extremely good university. When he found out who his audience
was, he was anxious to discuss his experiences as a community college student.

After
attending a community college in Wisconsin, he transferred to the university.
At first, he was a bit tenuous about moving from a small community college to a
large university and wondered how he would do academically. He did well. In
fact, he said, “I believe I had to work harder at the community college than I
did at the university.”

Community
Colleges truly offer quality programs,
everything from the GED for those who have dropped out of school and wish to
return to college to professional-technical programs such a building
construction, auto mechanics, health information sciences, nursing, wind
energy, and computer technology, including networking. Most of these programs
offer internships to help students participate in real, hands-on skills
training already being used in the workplace. Also, with a
professional-technical two-year degree or a one-year certificate, you can
immediately enter the workplace, equipped with the appropriate skills employers
want and desperately need.

Interesting,
many famous and successful people attended community colleges: Ross Perot, Jim
Lehrer, George Lucas, Nolan Ryan, Sarah Palin and many others, including
senators, journalists, university and college presidents, and successful
business people.

Whether you
attend one of the community colleges in your state or in your hometown, you
will be offered quality programs that are extremely accessible and
especially affordable. In
essence, community colleges are educational bargains—and everyone loves
a bargain.

Saturday, August 4, 2012

Want to be part of the new
aristocracy? The new aristocracy is called the intellectual aristocracy, filled
with people who have invested in acquiring knowledge.

Some years ago, Jaime Escalante, whose
life was depicted in the movie Stand and
Deliver, spoke about a poster hanging on a wall in his classroom. It read: “Free, free, free—knowledge. Bring your own
containers.” How apropos for high school students on the brink of entering
college and transitioning to the new world economy. Knowledge is abundant in
the new economy, but we have to be willing to obtain it.

Since the
knowledge-based economy has engulfed us, we must prepare ourselves to not only
to survive but to thrive. Unfortunately, mom and dad are not always going to
support your habits. Soon—for some, sooner than you think—the responsibility
will fall to you. Are you ready? At eighteen, I knew I wasn’t ready. After two
years in southern Chile
and a year of work, I was ready to enter college to gain knowledge. Had I heard
about Escalante’s admonition, I would have brought along more containers.

Consider
these suggestions:

One, understand that going to college
should not be an option. It is a must, a prerequisite to being a part of
the new intellectual aristocracy. Our family has always focused on the phrase:
“Not if you are going to college but where and when.”

Two, while in high school, take a rigorous
set of courses. If you can, take those that count for dual-credit, credit
for high school and college. You will be further ahead when you enroll in
college. In fact, some students in other states earn their high school diploma
one day, and the next day they receive their associate degree in other states. Invest
now in obtaining the best grades and being involved, thus enhancing your
chances to earn scholarships.

Three, when you go to college, take
advantage of the most affordable one you can attend, even if it is close to
home. Because most college programs require two years of general education, it
is more affordable to attend a two-year college. Community colleges offer a
wonderful array of core courses taught by extremely gifted professors.

Four, take a variety of courses, particularly
those that require hard work and critical thinking skills. In the global
market, most employers seek talented people who can think, adapt to change, and
maneuver within the organization. Possessing good skill sets will enable you to
succeed.

And five, think of your education as an
investment that should be replenished often. If you don’t reinvest in
yourself and upgrade your skills along the way, you will succumb to the plight
of dinosaurs who couldn’t adapt to change.

Graduating
from high school is truly a huge step. But begin strategizing now how you are
going to maneuver successfully through our knowledge-based economy. The best
part of being part of your lifelong educational investment is that you become
part of the new intellectual aristocracy.

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Some years ago, I wrote: “Put simply: the future leaders are you and
me, and we must lead on, we must be visionary, and we must learn the
power and energy of the whole.” Since you and I are the leaders who
must be visionary, I now ask the question: have you thought of yourself
as a futurist?

During my doctoral program, I took an
enlightening course from Dr. Gary Delka on strategic planning. While
this course focused particularly on educational practitioners who were
in the throes of restructuring, I sincerely believe the fundamental
principles have equal relevance for business owners, especially those
who are seeking some connection to the future. I wish to discuss five
principles of viewing into the future. While these five do not encompass
the entire strategic planning process, they represent basic principles
of looking at ourselves as planners and visionaries.

Following a formula for success—Ironically,
planning is formulaic. Normally, planning does not just occur. Perhaps
some of you have experienced instant success without much planning, but
most of us have to plan for it. Consider this formula: p x f = pr.
Simply, this formula is “the past interacting with the future equals the
present.” If you truly want to compete in the future, this formula
should be followed as you strategically plan your future restructuring.
Remember: reform is cosmetic; restructuring, on the other hand, is
changing the way we do business.

Scanning to see who you are and what you are about—An
important ingredient of looking at the future hinges on scanning. All
stakeholders need to be involved, looked at, or even visited.
Stakeholders include customers, internal and external. Additionally, you
must look at what the competition is doing. Analysis of critical issues
also plays an integral part of the scanning process. Certainly there
are issues that are relevant to your future plans. Bottom line is
scanning is taking a look at yourselves, your customers, the
competition, and any critical issues that might become barriers in your
quest to compete in the future.

Recognizing the present but be willing to go beyond—Many
of you have heard of the story about the man who loved to drive his
sports car on country roads. One day he was driving out in the country
when he approached his most favorite curve. But before he got there, he
saw another car coming toward, swerving back and forth, almost out of
control. When the car passed him, the woman yelled out, “Pig!” Thinking
her comment as rude, he yelled back, “Cow!” Still fuming how could she
call him such a sour name, he roared into the curve and ran right into a
pig. Instead of thinking beyond his own narrow paradigm, he failed to
listen to the warning, thus causing him to crash into a pig. Are you
listening and recognizing present warnings that might impede you from
performing in the future?

Using the information available—Driselli
once said, “As a general rule, the most successful man is the one with
the information and uses it effectively.” Our current world spits out
information much faster than we can assimilate it. This can cause a
problem if we do know how to gather the information that is relevant to
our business. As information thunders down the conveyor belt, we must be
there to pick off the data that pertains to us. That means, we must
know from our scanning what information is relevant to the future growth
of our business. Often that information comes from within our own
company.

Looking to the future and taking control of it—Many
of us sit idly by, thinking—and sometimes hoping and praying— the
future might actually pass us by. Unfortunately, if we take this
perspective, the future will engulf us, and it definitely will pass us
by, leaving us to wonder what happen to us or to our businesses. The key
ingredient is that “I am in control of mine own destiny.” Often we
find ourselves being puppeteered by someone or something else. Actually,
“we are the final generation of an old civilization and the first
generation of a new one” (Heidi and Alvin Toffler (1994) in Creating a
New Civilization: The Politics of the Third Wave, p. 21). Basically,
whether you want to believe it or not, the future is upon us.

Overall,
we must think of ourselves as futurists with the ability to peer into
the future and see ourselves there, in plain and living color. We must
believe we are the ones in control of what we do. Granted, there may be
“things” that emerge that we might not be totally prepared for, but our
renewed ability to analyze and diagnose a problem will help us overcome
these obstacles. More importantly, we must adhere to Virgil’s philosophy
of old: “They can because they think they can.” Therefore, think away
and be successful!

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About Me

We have been married for 37 years and have two daughters, Anna Rose (Christiaan) and Hailey (Joseph). We have four grandchildren--Emiline/William (Anna Rose) and Clark/Avonlea (Hailey).
We have previously served as Welfare Specialists in the Caribbean Area Welfare Offiice and lived in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
We are excited to serve with all of you in the California Riverside Mission!